


The Beginning of the End

by Oboeist3



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Alternate Ending - Epilogue, Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 04:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3881584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oboeist3/pseuds/Oboeist3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened to Nick Carraway after the summer of 1922?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! Oboeist here. Had to write an alternate ending for the Great Gatsby for English and really ended up liking the result! Heavily inspired by the lovely irisbleufic's The Pursued and the Pursuing, (especially in the letter formatting, and the brief mention of their OC Sylvie Saint-Germain. I give full credit of her to iris in those regards. Anyway, hope you enjoy and DFTBA!

Epilogue

How does one forget Jay Gatsby? In all my contemplation of the butterfly guests of his parties, I had yet to crack that particular shallowness of theirs. That ability to flutter about tragedy and not be weighted by grief was incomprehensible to me. Perhaps it was a Midwestern value long tossed to the curb by these Eastern socialites. No, I could not forget Gatsby. Not as long as I lived.

I had thought that writing the events of that summer might bring me some closure, some finality or purpose to the death of that great man. But the terrible reality of the world is it never stops, even when we think it should. Life continues after the pages end.

After 1922, I moved back to Minnesota, to my father’s grand house and tight smile. He was good enough not to mention the cracked husk of a dream I held in my coat pocket, wings torn and feathers trailing behind me.

In retrospect, the old man did a lot more than I gave him credit for. He didn’t ask my reasons for returning, merely shook his head in disappointment and let me in. When my mother fretted over me, battering me with questions, he told her to leave me be as I climbed a staircase of shame to my room and locked the door.

The grief was overwhelming in a different way I ever thought it could be. I had lost people close to me before. Old war buddies, family, and with all of them I had an allotted sadness, a period of mourning, but when it was done I moved on. The occasional pang was understandable, but I accepted the reality. Gatsby’s death was nothing like that. Instead of feeling like a weight on my shoulders, his passing sucked the life from me. I had a Romantic notion I’d left the bits of my soul scattered between the Eggs, among the lawn filled with flowers, the grand closets filled to the brim with European shirts, dissipated in the water of his unused swimming pool.

Whatever the reason, once I crawled into my bed the night of my return, I could not bring myself to leave it. Under the covers I felt a security greater than the vault of any bank. My mother tried pleading, begging, bribing, crying, and when her arsenal was emptied, called for every doctor in the state to find the problem, to fix her son. The fifth one put it best I think.

“Your son has the terrible affliction of his heart on his sleeve. Nothing for that but time.”

So time I was given. For over three years I let myself be little more than a parasite to my family, legend to the youth of my town, and gossip for the kitchen workers. The wild stories they thought of! I was a monster, a murderer, a crazy old drunk who stole kids at night and ate them, keeping their skulls as trophies. The adults’ stories were only slightly more believable. The cause of my affliction ranged from a lost love to a bad scrape with the mob to betrayal of the murderous vein. Yet none of them were any more fantastic than the truth.

It was the letter that brought it all into perspective. A simple thing, brought up by the maid with a lunch I would most likely only nibble the corners of. The envelope was a flat white, unremarkable, but was such a deviation from the norm it made me curious. Once opened I unfolded a rose colored paper, scrawled in a trained but still messy cursive of which could only belong to one person.

_Dearest Nicky,_

_How appalling my manners are, to not have spoken to my favorite cousin in over three years! Well, it was such dreadful business when we last saw each other, a very bad time, there's no denying that, and we must hope it's all turned out for the best. Still, I must be brave and write to you, horrid memories aside._

_Tom and I spent the rest of ‘22 in Chicago, getting everything sorted out, and queer enough who did we run into but dear old Aunt Meredith? She’d been having a rough time of it since Uncle Wilhelm’s death, his wheezing caught up to him she told me, and found some solace in the ‘big city’. A Major Bloomsworth’s been looking after her, a kind enough man, if a bit of bore. Yet I shouldn’t wonder if we’ll have a new uncle soon._

_Tom ended up getting a position in Boston, and we’ve shacked up in a quaint seaside lodging, only four bedrooms and creaky. I do miss the fast paced modernity of New York, the parties, the glamour, the excess, but it simply can’t be helped. Pammy seems to love it at least. Her Nanny takes her to the beach every day she can, a good excuse as any to get some quiet. She has an endless stream of questions about this and that, an overwhelming curiosity and such a bother. She’ll temper out someday, I’m sure. All the good girls start out a bit rough._

_I wish you all the best in your bond business or whatever you’ve been getting up to and we’ll try and pop down sometime soon._

_Lots of love,_

_Daisy_

I read the words over and over again, my eyes burning them into my memory like hieroglyphs in a tomb. My hands shook as if the entire room had been plunged in Arctic water. I prided myself on level-headedness, but at the moment all I could feel was a deep, insatiable rage.

She’d forgotten about Gatsby, pushed him to the back of her memory as nothing more than a bad event. She’d gone on with her life with her callous cruelty of uncaring.

It wasn’t fair. Gatsby gave Daisy everything she ever wanted, and she did not deign to give him the decency of her remembrance.

I placed the letter on the bedside table and dug my palms into my eyes, painting painful stars across my vision, trying to block out the stream of angry questions beginning ‘how’ and ‘why.’ I grappled with reason as one does glasses dropped in a lake, but it slipped out of my grasp and into the murky depths of my emotions.

A determination burned in me like that of the Puritan preachers’ pronouncement of Hell; Gatsby would not be forgotten, not by Daisy, not by anyone. I lurched out of bed and stumbled on weak limbs to the accumulation of junk that obscured my writing desk, tearing them off without regard for their personal integrity. One of the items, a vase, even shattered, but I gave no heed to it.

Eventually I found my recounting of the summer, the title page smudged slightly with ink. The Great Gatsby . I remarked almost distantly on the ring of it, the fluidity. The words contained in this could condemn people to ruin, expose corruption of a scale almost God-like. Break a death-sealed promise. The first tendrils of doubt crept into my mind, was this what he would have wanted?

A knock at the door snapped me out of my reverie, the timid voice of the maid ringing out.

“Are you alright in there, sir?”

The tone of her voice was more frightened than concerned, like she believed the idiotic rhetoric of the children. She was a simple sort, it wouldn’t surprise me. But it occurred to me that without this, I was condemned to be little more than the village madman. A war veteran broken at the seams, hiding himself from his pain in a haze of alcohol. And the events of that summer would mean nothing, mere pebbles scattered by the oceans of time. He deserved better than that.

“Fine, thank you. A vase fell over. Send one of the girls to clean it up. Oh and a small box. I have a parcel to send.”

Four weeks. Four weeks I waited for a reply, any indication that my manuscript had reached Brookington’s, the main publishing company for the Midwest and Northeast, and the producer of more than their fair share of useless drivel. Twenty-eight days of torturous existence, watching the seconds tick by too slow. In my impatience I turned to activity, got up and ready early every morning, checking the mailbox before I ran around the town, did busywork provided by overworked colleagues while they slipped out for kid’s birthday parties or less noble causes.

My mother was overjoyed at my sudden recovery, called it a miracle and openly broke out in tears whenever brought up by her Church girls. Truly the Lord was merciful. My father thought it was about time, said as much over the lip of his newspaper, but he didn’t rustle it quick enough to hide the slip of a smile on his face.

Despite the relief of my parents, nothing much had changed. My body may be out and about, but my mind remained trapped in the past like a broken clock. The evening post was both the source of great hope and subsequent disappointment for me, the last chance for the day to produce the event I was so desperate to experience.

By the twenty-ninth day, I was starting to lose hope. I’d heard the reluctance in recent years to take mail-ins, but this was Brookington’s! Hardly the holder of high standards. But still the thoughts of my manuscript being shoved in the garbage without so much as a glance affected me to the point I did not leave the house, merely staring out the window at the quaint white mailbox with Caraway on the side. Waiting, as I always was.

There wasn’t any post in the morning, not incoming at least. Mrs. Chessik, the cook for my family as long as anyone could remember, did run down the poor mailman for a letter, but he simply took it and went the rest of his rounds. Mailboxes were frightfully uneventful the majority of the day. There was a slight gust around noon, blowing husky brown leaves about the base. Later in the afternoon clouds circled the sun, casting long, ominous shadows across the lawn. By five a slight drizzle had picked up, teardrops streaking the windows, making it hard to see anything. So hard I almost missed the man walking up the driveway, attempting in vain to shield his eyes with his hat and holding a parcel under one arm.

I was so shocked I couldn’t even move, only continue to watch as he hastily shoved it with the rest of our letters into the mailbox and scurried off, seeking some shelter presumably down the road. When I finally processed it all I jumped up, dashing out into the stinging rain without so much as a coat. The sharp-edged pebbles of the driveway stuck to my bare feet, making each step painful, but my focus lay purely on that white point at the end, so close and far. My own green light.

Once there, I yanked open the door with shaking fingers, grabbing the brown box and squinting to read the label. It was from Brookington’s! The joy I felt was comparable to those an accepted proposal. Finally, it would all matter again!

I had to see what they said about it. Did I use too many commas? What needed to be cut out? Some of the sections were unnecessarily wordy, but others I would fight tooth and nail to keep as they were. About his smile, certainly. The multi-faceted nature of his past, true and fake. All these thoughts and more rushed around my consciousness like mad dogs, each demanding attention, but fell silent at the sight of the title page.

Rejected. It was scrawled across the page in flowing red ink, a casual dismissal of my one remaining dream. Droplets of water made it seem to bleed, red against perfect white. White as his midnight suit, as the porcelain of the teacups he gave me, the lilies forcibly planted in my yard. Red as the gifted dress, the fireworks I met him under, his blood painting rings in that too still pool.

I fell to my knees, holding the box tightly to my chest, as if a mother holding her child. I bowed my head and let the rain plaster my hair to it, soak through my clothes. Despite the rain, a sliver of sunshine poked through the dark mire, shining on me like the halo of an angel. My bunkmate during the war, a buck-toothed boy from Alabama, used to call the phenomenon ‘the Devil beatin’ his wife.’ It felt like I had taken her place today.

The Devil’s fists were not at all like that of mortals. No bruises or black eyes to be found. His were deeper than that, lacerations upon the spirit. The anguish those eight simple letters inspired was and still is beyond my ability to say. It consumed me completely.

It might have done so forever, had not a sharp familiar voice rang in my ears.

“Praying in the rain? What has this place done to you, Nick?”

My eyes traced a long route up a silken white dress, embroidered with beads and shining like summer, and not just any. The summer of 1922 stood standing, poised, an umbrella over her shoulder and an effortless smile on her pretty red lips.

“Jordan?”

“The one and only.” She said coolly, giving a mock curtsy. I had never thought I would see the professional golf player ever again, certainly never outside her world of drink and revelry.

“W-What are you doing here?”

“What, a gal can’t visit her summer fling?” she asked, coy as ever. If I really loved anything about her, it was that whip of a wit, so different from the others and yet cozily among them.

“Now really Nicky ,” she said pointedly, knowing my distaste for my cousin’s nickname all too well. “You’re being very rude. Won’t you show me in?” she said, nodding at the front door. (Was it really that close?)

“Oh. Well, yes. Of course.” I managed to coax out. I closed the box and tucked it under one arm as its previous occupant had before struggling to my feet. She held out a hand to steady me, which I took. Her palms were warm compared to my wet ones, petite and carefully maintained.

“What’s that you’re holding?” she asked conversationally, as if we were talking about local sports or the terrible state of Europe’s economy.

“Well it’s….nothing, really.” I said, not wanting to explain the whole thing, but I felt like I’d hit something far deeper.

“Hmm.” She hummed, looking thoughtful. Jordan started swinging our hands back and forth as we walked towards the door, a habit I usually associated with anxious young lovers. But we were none of those anymore.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush Nicky. Daisy sent me. She’s worried about you.”

I snorted. The thought of Daisy ever being concerned had a certain amusement.

“She is! When I went down to see you and told her you weren’t at that tiny cottage in West Egg, she was about ready to call the police of the whole state to find you. Luckily your Finn told us you’d just flown home.”

“I’m not a carrier pigeon, Jordan.”

“Really? Gatsby treated you as much.”

I froze at his name off her lips, stopping our journey in its tracks, pulling her close with the urgency of war torn family. Her blue eyes centimeters from mine.

“Say that again.” I demanded, knowing I looked a complete madman.

“What?” she scoffed, cheeks flushed in embarresment at my actions.

“Say that again Jordan. For the love of God, do it!” I shouted, fingers digging into her shoulders.

“What, Gatsby treated you as much?! You can’t deny it!”

“You remember him.”

“Of course I do! How could you forget a man like that?”

I laughed, loud and cracked, rusty from a three year disuse. I laughed and laughed until my lungs grew tired and my breath was short. “I know.” I breathed out finally. “I know.”

She looked at me with a calculating gaze, an assessment I was not remotely prepared for.

“You’ve grown queer, Nick. Very  queer.” She quirked a smile. “I like it.”

We continued our walk and talk with amiability, recounting the rest of that summer not through the lens of grief but nostalgia. Once over the threshold I took off her coat and put it in the closet, nudging the box in as well, where it remained ever since.

Over that night and many, many subsequent, I came to realize those first few years after Gatsby’s death, I had done to him what he had ill-advisedly done to Daisy. I had imagined an impossibility, not because he was dead, but because he was human.

I remembered all the frustrating things he used to do, the old sports as pompous rather than refined, the obsession with Daisy and her happiness more than unhealthy. Not to say he lost all his greatness. That smile was still the kindest I’d ever encountered, and that handwritten invitation I keep with me always.

I never did forget him. Every day was filled with a thousand reminders, a lily, a flash of pink silk, swimming pools and Charleston dancing and tiny alcohol glasses. But I let the spectre of his death abandon me. The outrage at the unfairness fade. Death will be the fairest judge, in the end.

He’s coming for me soon. A twenties youth doesn’t lend to longevity, I’ve accepted that. It’s all well and good. I don’t think I could live through another War. Mark my words, they’ll be one. I saw it once before.

I can only hope that when he comes, he’ll bring along a dashing young man with an understanding smile and an overuse of the phrase ‘old sport.’

 

_The Great Gatsby was first published in 1954, after being discovered by Caraway’s niece, Pamela Saint-Germaine. The first edition with an epilogue was published in 1993, given to the publisher by Pamela’s partner Sylvie, who stated the reason for withholding the information so long was, “Pam didn’t want people to focus on the aftermath. Her uncle wrote the book for the public. The epilogue was for himself.”_


End file.
